A.Word.A.Day --patrocliny

A.Word.A.Day

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Apr 28, 2009

This week's theme
Words for him and her

This week's words
maritorious
patrocliny
misogyny
materfamilias
pseudandry

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

patrocliny / patricliny

PRONUNCIATION:

(PA-truh-kli-nee)

MEANING:

noun: Inheritance of traits primarily from the father.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek patro- (father) + klinein (to lean). Ultimately from the Indo-European root klei- (to lean) that is also the source of lean, incline, ladder, lid, client, climate, and climax.

NOTES:

The female counterpart of this term is matrocliny.

USAGE:

"Common to all was the early modern ideal of nobility that prized purity above antiquity; quarterings [joining different coats of arms to symbolize various ancestries] together above patrocliny, and virtue above ethnicity."
William D. Godsey; Nobles and Nation in Central Europe; Cambridge University Press; 2004.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Oh, would that my mind could let fall its dead ideas, as the tree does its withered leaves! -Andre Gide, author, Nobel laureate (1869-1951)

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